The Fortuity Duet

by Rochelle Paige

  “I don’t have a car.” Which was hard to admit when it was obvious she didn’t just have a car—she had one that probably cost as much as the state was going to pay in tuition for twenty foster kids to attend college this school year.

  “Did a friend drop you off? I’ll wait with you until they come back to pick you up.”

  “No, I took an Uber. But it’ll only take a few minutes for another one to show up.”

  She circled back and opened the passenger door on the Bentley. “Get in. I’ll drop you off.”

  I told myself it would have been rude to decline her offer, but really I just wanted to ride in her car. Between the wood veneer touches, buttery leather on the seat, and deep pile carpets, it felt like being wrapped in luxury. When she pulled into the parking lot on campus, I was reluctant to leave the comfort of the passenger seat. “Thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.” And so did my savings account.

  “It really was no problem. I needed to stop by the campus bookstore to pick up some stuff for my son sometime this week anyway, so I’ll just do that next since I’m already here.”

  “I didn’t realize he was a student here, too. What year is he?”

  “A senior, like you.”

  I’d been laser-focused on my studies and working with foster students during my first three years of school, so I didn’t have a big social circle like a lot of the other students. I tried to think of any guys I’d met in class or in the dorms with the same last name as hers, but I didn’t come up with anyone. “What’s his first name?”

  “Dillon.”

  It still didn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think I know him.”

  “I guess that’s not too much of a surprise since it’s a big campus, but maybe he’ll be available to come with me on Friday to drop off the first round of donations to you. I’d love for the two of you to meet.”

  I was too preoccupied with her casual mention of giving me stuff for the group in such a short amount of time to notice the gleam in her eye when she mentioned introducing me to her son. “Friday is the end of this week. Will that be long enough for you to get everything pulled together for so many students?”

  “Absolutely,” she replied without batting an eye. “And I plan on making this first round special because I’m well aware of all the stuff kids need when they move into the dorms.”

  I quickly learned that Elaine Montgomery was a woman of her word when we met up that Friday and she handed me one hundred and seventy-two envelopes to pass out to the kids I was working with when they moved onto campus that weekend. Each one was filled with several hundred dollars in gift cards to Publix, Walmart, Target, and a few different restaurants, plus three hundred in cash. She’d somehow managed to raise more than a hundred thousand dollars in less than a week, but she shrugged it off like it was no big deal and seemed more concerned that her son hadn’t been around to come with her so she could introduce us. Go figure.

  I enjoyed the hell out of handing them out, that was for damn sure. Running around campus, trying to hunt down all the foster kids was a bit insane, but it was more than worth the effort. Especially when I found two of my favorite incoming freshmen, Emily and Kyle, in the parking lot. “Hey, guys! Everything okay over here?”

  Kyle was the first to spot me when he turned around and answered, “Yeah, everything’s good.”

  “It’s a big day. I was just having a moment,” Emily added as she got out of the car and moved next to Kyle.

  “A big day in a totally different way for you two.” I grinned and widened my eyes at them while wagging my brows, thrilled that they no longer had to keep their secret. It’d been torture watching the two of them around each other and waiting until they could finally be together. As foster kids living in the same group home for the past little while, they would have risked being separated if anyone had caught on to how they felt about each other. “Since you can finally come out as a couple.”

  “When exactly did you clue in to our secret?” Kyle asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “Right about the time you strolled into one of my after-school presentations and asked me if it’d still be possible for you to use the waiver if you started a year late since you hadn’t applied in time your senior year.”

  Emily nodded, but Kyle didn’t get what I meant even though it’d made his feelings for her super clear to me at the time. “How’d that give us away? A ton of the other kids there were asking questions about the program.”

  “You missed all the application deadlines, which told me you hadn’t been thinking of going before then and something must have changed your mind. When Emily’s eyes lit up like you’d just given her the best gift ever, I put two and two together—”

  “And came up with the pair of us,” he finished for me.

  “Yup,” I confirmed. “From then on, it was impossible to miss the way you guys just seemed drawn to each other. You didn’t even need to be looking at each other to seem like you were still connected.” And it’d made me wish that I could find someone who cared about me as much as these two did with each other.

  “Maybe now that you’ve got so many of us enrolled in colleges across the state, you’ll take a little more time for yourself and find the guy who’s going to look at you the way Kyle does me,” Emily suggested.

  “Maybe,” I sighed. It was hard for me to picture it actually happening for me, though. “Stranger things have happened—like that stupid article about me in the paper leading to me getting funding for every foster kid enrolled here will get gift cards for stuff like pizza, groceries, and the campus bookstore plus a little extra cash every month!”

  When Kyle froze up, I was happy Emily was around to calm him back down and answer for the both of them. “That’s awesome. Is there anything we need to do? Paperwork to be filled out?”

  I offered her a quick smile. “Nope. I met with the woman in charge of it yesterday, and she gave me a bunch of stuff to hand out to everyone this weekend.”

  I heaved my backpack off my shoulder and dug through it to pull out two envelopes. Since Kyle didn’t reach out to grab his, I handed them both to Emily. I loved how her eyes opened wide when she looked inside. “Can you pass along our thanks, from the both of us?”

  “Yeah, we’d appreciate it,” Kyle murmured.

  “Uh huh, I can tell,” I laughed, knowing damn well he could care less if I thanked Elaine for them. “No worries, though. I’ll pass along your heartfelt gratitude when I talk to her.”

  “Please do, because what’s in these?” Emily jiggled the envelopes. “Wow. Just wow.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure how she pulled it off. It’s way more than I expected, even with her telling me the first ones were going to be special because of all the stuff kids need when they move into the dorms. And she did them for all the foster kids enrolled here, not just the incoming freshman. We’re talking about a hundred thousand dollars of stuff, and I first talked to her a week ago. I can’t even wrap my head around how she was able to raise that much money that quickly.”

  “It bears repeating, so...wow.”

  I’d certainly said and thought it myself more than once. “Well, if you two crazy kids are all set, I’m going to try to track down the others. I want everyone to get their envelope as soon as possible so they can grab any necessities they’re missing sooner rather than later.”

  Emily gave me a quick hug but didn’t let me leave without saying one last thing. “I know I’ve said it before, but this bears repeating too. Thank you so much. For everything. I can’t believe I’m here, and I owe it all to you.”

  I felt my cheeks heat and didn’t quite know how to respond to her gratitude. “I...umm...You. Gah! You don’t owe it all to me. You’re here because you deserve to be. Because you worked hard for it. I just gave you the nudge you needed. That’s all.”

  “So not true,” Kyle argued as he wrapped his arms around Emily. “You did way more than give us a nudge.”

  “Him especially,” she teased.

/>   “There’s no arguing with that,” I laughed as I walked away, on the lookout for the rest of the kids so I could make their day in the same way I just had with Emily and Kyle. And I owed it all to Elaine Montgomery.

  5

  Dillon

  Three months later

  “Hit me,” the guy to the left of me requested.

  I heaved a deep sigh and barely refrained from rolling my eyes at his stupidity. He was the last seat at the table, in what was called “third base.” He was the final player before the dealer, who had a six showing. That queen the player just busted on should’ve gone to the dealer, except the guy took a card when he should have held at fifteen. He was too much of a novice to know how the game was supposed to be played, and it only took him three hands before he fucked things up for the rest of us.

  If I wasn’t in the middle of a hot streak when he sat down, I would have gotten up from the table right after we finished the first hand he’d played because it’d been quickly obvious he had no clue what he was doing. The dealer had rearranged his bet for him after he’d put two ten-dollar chips on top of a five when the etiquette was to stack them in with the biggest denominations on the bottom. Less than a minute later, she’d had to rebuke him for touching his chips since you weren’t supposed to do that after the bet had been placed and was in the betting box. He’d told her he was going to stay on that hand, instead of sliding his cards under his bet. And he’d done it when he’d been sitting at fifteen while the dealer had a seven showing. It’d been a stupid move, resulting in his loss when the dealer flipped over a king and beat him with seventeen. It’d been irritating, but at least it hadn’t impacted my hand.

  I was hoping he’d quickly grow tired of the game, but I should’ve known it wouldn’t be long before his bad game play cost me money. After he busted, the dealer drew a five. “Twenty-one.”

  She swept up all the chips left in the betting boxes. If he’d held, she would have been the one to bust and all of us would’ve won. Eyeing the stack that was about a quarter of what I’d started with tonight, I gulped down the rest of my beer before standing. I picked up my chips and shuffled through them for the twenty-five dollar one I tossed in front of the dealer for a tip. She gave me an appreciative smile, but it dimmed when I turned my attention to the guy who’d just cost me a hundred bucks.

  “Do everyone a favor, yourself included, and switch to one of the five-dollar tables instead.”

  “Whaddya mean? I got just as much right to play at this table as anybody else,” the guy blustered as he got to his feet to face off with me. His gaze swept down my clothes, taking in my designer jeans and a button-down shirt. When he looked up again, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “You got no right to tell me what to do. My money spends just as well as yours.”

  “You want to lose all your money placing stupid ass bets? Go right ahead. I couldn’t care less.” The guy edged closer to me, and I held my ground as I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the players to my right. “But I do give a fuck when you make mistakes that cost the rest of us money.”

  “Mistakes?” he scoffed. “Blackjack is a game of chance. Luck decides who wins or loses. Not skill.”

  “You’re wrong. Played well, blackjack is a game of skill in a casino full of games of chance. If you want to win or lose completely based on luck, then you should pick one of those instead.” I waved towards the rows of slot machines lining the wall across from us.

  His eyes narrowed and he puffed out his chest. “I didn’t come here to play slots. I came for the cards.”

  “Then you should do like I said and switch to the five-dollar table until you figure out how the game’s supposed to be played. Learn when to hit, when to stand, when to double, and when to split,” I suggested. “Good players don’t just blindly try to get as close to twenty-one as possible. They consider the card the dealer’s showing, and they make an educated guess of the eventual outcome so they can play their hand accordingly. If you’re going to play at a table where the minimum bet is twenty-five dollars, then at the very least you should know to fucking stand on fifteen when the dealer has a six showing because she’s going to take another card.”

  The guy’s face turned ruddy and he was winding up to respond when one of the security guards tapped me on the shoulder. “Mr. Montgomery.”

  It probably should’ve bothered me that I’d only been playing at the casino since I turned twenty-one a couple of months ago and I’d been there often enough in that short time for them to know me by name. But it didn’t—not when it meant I was a valued customer and the casino’s security was quick to step between me and the asshole who I was starting to think was looking for a fight. I should’ve anticipated being on the casino’s radar. Some days I won a whack, others I lost. But I always bet big and only at blackjack because I preferred to play poker at the underground games I’d discovered when I was eighteen. After putting some thought into it, I would’ve been surprised if I hadn’t been on their radar.

  “Do you need any assistance?”

  The security guy directed his question to me, but it only served to piss the asshole off more than he already was and he was the one who answered. “Yeah, I could use some help getting this privileged dick”—he took a step towards me and stabbed a finger into my chest—“to understand that he can’t tell me where I can and cannot play. Last I checked, this was a public place, and I’ve got the right to do what I want where I want to do it.”

  “Actually, sir.” The guard next to me moved between us as he spoke, while another one came up from behind the guy and grabbed his arm to yank it away from my chest and shoved it behind his back. “The casino is privately owned and we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.”

  “I’m not the one you should be explaining that to!” the asshole yelled, trying to break free of the security guy’s hold. He swung his free arm up and pointed at me. “It’s him! He’s the one who started shit. Not me!”

  “Sir, Mr. Montgomery has been playing here regularly for two months”—knowing I was on their radar was one thing, getting confirmation that they knew exactly how long I’d been playing at the casino was another—“and he’s never been involved in an altercation until tonight. With you.”

  The implication was impossible to miss, and the asshole caught it quickly. “Oh, so just because this is my first time here and he’s some high roller, it’s gotta be my fault?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice and get control of yourself, sir. Or else we’ll have to escort you out of the building.”

  “The hell you will,” the guy roared back at the security guard, ripping his arm out of the hold the other one had on him and closing the gap between us to haul off and slam his fist into my cheekbone. He’d moved fast enough to catch me unaware, but the second he connected with me, my instincts took over and I defended myself by throwing a punch of my own. I connected with his jaw and felt the force of the hit radiate through my hand.

  It felt good.

  Damn good.

  Even better than the high of a hot streak at the tables.

  But I didn’t get to enjoy the euphoric moment for long because the two security guys stepped in a split-second after my fist made contact, and several others surrounded us. The asshole got dragged towards the entrance of the casino by three guys, and I was taken through a set of doors marked “Employees Only” at the back by three more.

  I didn’t struggle, letting them pull me along without putting up a fight. As soon as we were in the privacy of the narrow hallway with the doors closed behind us, the security guard who’d done all the talking out there released my arm. I lifted my hands up, palms out, to let him know they weren’t going to get any trouble from me.

  “I was just defending myself, man.”

  “You should’ve let us do our jobs, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “It was pure instinct without any thought behind it.” I dropped my hands and shrugged my shoulders. “Hell, I didn�
�t even know I was going to throw that punch until it was already done.”

  “Next time, step back and let us handle the situation. It’s why they keep us around, and we’re damn good at our jobs.”

  My attention locked on his first two words. “Can I take that to mean I’m not banned?”

  “Keep your head down, stay outta trouble, leave the fighting to us, and you should be fine.” His gaze moved to my cheek, and he shook his head with a low chuckle. “At the very least, we’re more likely to be the one giving someone else a black eye than ending up with one of our own at the end of a shift.”

  I lightly pressed my fingertips against the upper part of my cheek and winced. He was right; a bruise was already forming underneath my eye. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s gonna leave a mark.”

  The guard smirked at me, but I didn’t see the humor in the situation. I wasn’t going to be able to hide the bruise from my parents since I was supposed to have dinner with them in less than two hours. They were bound to assume my black eye was connected to gambling since we’d fought about it over the past couple of years. I could try coming up with a convincing cover story, but I was a shit liar when it came to my parents and they were bound to see through it anyway. I was so fucked.

  “I’ll be sure to leave it to you guys if anything happens again,” I promised before walking out the door they’d led me through after the altercation. I kept going, moving quickly through the casino and out to the parking lot since I didn’t want to give them a reason to reconsider their decision to let me come back again. Although the rush of punching that asshole had felt damn good, it wasn’t worth losing my gambling fix. And that’s just what it was for me.

  A fix.

  A high.

  And if you asked my parents, one I needed to avoid like the plague because I was perilously close to becoming addicted. But I wasn’t. I had it under control. Completely. I just enjoyed the escape gambling gave me, and it was a hell of a lot better than turning to alcohol or drugs instead.